Cleveland Beer Week launches today. Cheers, folks.
And while we’ll down a pint or eleventyforty and celebrate the Forest City’s current ample and diverse brew offerings — this really is a prime time to be a beer lover in this town — Cleveland has a fascinating and lengthy zymurgy history well worth your attention. Dozens of breweries dotted downtown before Prohibition — 26 operating at one time in 1910 — from the Cleveland Home Brewing Company to Pilsener to Leisy to Standard Brewing to the Cleveland-Sandusky Brewing Co.
A couple of places to school yourself:
1) The Cleveland Memory Project has a dynamite stash of historical photos from those breweries and that era which you can browse through at this link.
2) Dr. Robert Musson’s comprehensive and entertaining book, which you can read in full and for free on Google at the link: Brewing in Cleveland.
3) The Encyclopaedia of Cleveland History’s section on brewing.
That Dortmunder is going to taste a lot better once you know where it came from. Speaking of, here’s a short video from CSU Digital Humanities on the German influence on beer in Cleveland and America. Enjoy. And save us a pint.
This article appears in Oct 12-18, 2011.
